by Eugène Sue
“Add to this a fact of which I should have spoken earlier, but as one of your most celebrated women, Madame de Sévigné, has said: ‘Often the gist of a letter is to be found in its postscript.’ Well, without referring to my attachment to my wife and her affection for me, without speaking of the puritanic severity of her principles, do you know what, above all, has preserved her from the indiscretions of youth? Her devoted, her passionate love for her daughter. You could not comprehend its excess, its exaltation. Doubtless, our Irene deserves such devotion, but I sometimes tremble when I reflect that, if an unforeseen disaster like that which has already menaced us should bereave us of that child, her mother would assuredly lose her reason or her life.”
M. de Fersen was in the prime of life; he had an almost European reputation as a diplomat. His appearance denoted a distinguished man, called by his superior gifts to the exercise of those high functions which he had always filled; I could not but be astonished at the confidence reposed in one so young and so complete a stranger to him.
As I could not suspect that a man long accustomed to handle public affairs of the most difficult and serious character would act without reflection on matters which interested him personally, I concluded that M. de Fersen’s discourse held a hidden purpose, and that it was not without design that he had laid aside the reserve imposed by our age and position.
I repeat, I could see in this eccentric confidence no other aim than to prove to me that Madame de Fersen was unapproachable.
On the other hand, I had been disagreeably impressed when the prince spoke of his wife as of an instrument necessary to his diplomatic career. When he spoke of her, I had detected the most absolute heartlessness, and in his daily intercourse with Madame de Fersen, not only he showed no jealousy, — he was too much a man of the world to become ridiculous, — but he appeared even indifferent.
I asked myself, then, what object he could have in confiding to me that which I have just related.
I was thus plunged in an extreme perplexity.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE TRADITION.
I HAD NOT seen Madame de Fersen from the time that Irene had made the strange prediction which had seemed to alarm her mother so greatly.
The uncommon affection shown to me by this child astonished me very much. As soon as she was alone, she would come close to me. If I were reading in the saloon, fearing doubtless to be troublesome, she would sit on a cushion, resting her chin on her little hands, and I could not raise my eyes without meeting her profound and solemn glance.
Sometimes I endeavoured to amuse her with childish games, but she appeared disinclined for them, and said to me solemnly with her childish treble: “I prefer staying here near you, and looking at you as I used to look at Ivan.”
I was formerly much more superstitious than I am now; but in thinking over the strange fascination I seemed to have for this child, I recalled with a certain heart pang (I must confess the weakness) a singular Sanscrit tradition which my father had often read to me, because, he said, he had witnessed two events which confirmed its text.
According to this tradition, “those predestined to an early and violent death have the gift of fascinating children and lunatics.”
Now, in fact, Ivan had fascinated Irene, and he died a violent death.
I also fascinated Irene, who, in total ignorance of the tradition, had predicted for me a violent death.
This uncommon analogy was, to say the least, most extraordinary, and sometimes forcibly preoccupied me.
Even now that time has elapsed since these occurrences, Irene’s prediction at times comes back to my mind.
This tradition had been translated by my father, and was written with some other notes in a book containing the description of his travels in England and the East Indies. I had brought this manuscript with me from France, with other papers which were saved from the wreck of the yacht.
The day following the one when the princess was confined to her room by indisposition, she came into the saloon about two o’clock; I was there alone with her child.
Madame de Fersen’s face was pale and sad.
She saluted me graciously; her smile seemed to me more than usually friendly.
“I very much fear, monsieur, that my daughter is troublesome,” said she, seating herself and taking Irene on her lap.
“It is I, rather, madame, who may be accused of being troublesome, for Irene has shown me several times, by the gravity of her demeanour and speech, that she considered me too much of her age, and not enough of mine.—”
“Poor child!” said Madame de Fersen, embracing her daughter. “Have you no ill-will towards her, for her strange, her absurd prediction?”
“No, madame, for in turn I shall make a forecast, and then we shall be quits. Mlle. Irene,” said I, very seriously, taking her little hand in mine, “I shall not tell you that you will go up there, but I promise that ten or twelve years hence a beautiful angel will come down here from up there expressly for you. He will be beautiful like you, good like you, charming like you, and will lead you to a gorgeous palace, all marble and gold, where you will live a long, long time, the happiest of the happy with this beautiful angel, for he will love you as you love your mother; and then, one day, this palace being no longer beautiful enough for you, you and your angel together will fly away to go and occupy a more beautiful one up there.”
“And will you be there in that palace, with my mamma?” asked the child, fixing her large, inquiring eyes by turns on Madame de Fersen and on me.
It was folly, but I could not help feeling delighted at the association made by Irene in speaking of her mother and of me.
I know not whether Madame de Fersen noticed the sentiment, but she blushed, and said to her daughter, doubtless to avoid answering her question:
“Yes, my child, I shall be there, — at least I hope so.”
“But will you be there with him?” persisted the child pointing at me with her little finger.
Whether she was annoyed at Irene’s strange insistence, or whether she felt embarrassed, Madame de Fersen kissed her tenderly, took her in her arms and pressed her to her heart, saying, “You are a little goose; go to sleep, my pet.”
Then with an absent air she looked through the window of the saloon, saying, “It is a lovely day! How calm is the sea!”
“Very calm,” said I, with some irritation at seeing the conversation taking another turn.
Irene closed her eyes and seemed about to go to sleep. Her mother, with infinite grace, caught some of her child’s curls and drew them across her eyes, saying softly with motherly fondness, “Sleep, my child, now that I have closed your pretty curtains.”
In the early phases of love, there are entrancing trifles which give delight to sensitive souls.
It seemed to me delightful to be able to speak to Madame de Fersen in a half whisper, under pretext of not waking the child. There was in this apparently slight shade of difference something tender, mysterious, veiled, which entranced me.
Irene soon closed her eyes.
“How beautiful she is!” I whispered to her mother. “How much happiness may be read in that lovely face!”
Shall I say that I waited almost with anxiety Madame de Fersen’s reply, to know whether she also would whisper back to me?
Shall I say that I was happy, oh, so very happy to hear her reply in the same tone?
“May you be a true prophet,” she said; “may she be happy!”
“I could not tell her all I could foresee, madame, she would not have understood; but will you permit me to tell you what I would dream for her?”
“Certainly.”
“Well, then, madame, let us not speak of the happiness which is assured to her so long as she lives by your side; that would be too easy a prophecy. Let us speak of the moment so cruel to a mother’s heart, when she must abandon her idolised child to the care of an unknown family, of an unknown man. Poor mother! she can scarcely believe it. Her daughter, so timid, so re
tiring, so sensitive a nature, that to her mother alone she spoke without blushing, and with joyous assurance! Her daughter, — whom she has never left by day or by night! Her daughter, — her pride, her care, her solicitude, and her glory! Her daughter, — that angel of grace and candour, whom she alone can understand, whose joys and sorrows, susceptibility and diffidence she alone can divine! She is now in the power of a stranger, one who has ingratiated himself solely by coming daily for two months under the eyes of her parents to talk to her of conventional trifles, or, perhaps, of the duty that a wife owes her husband. They are now united; and here,. madame, I spare you the horribly vulgar and suggestive pageantry with which we lead a young girl to the altar, under the eyes of an unblushing crowd, with great parade, in the glare of daylight, and with the blare of music and of pomp. In Otahiti they act with more modesty, or at least with more reserve. At length, after the ceremony, this man carries off his prey to his home, saying, ‘Follow me, wife!’ Well, madame, should my predictions be realised, he who before God and before men would have the right to say so harshly to your daughter, ‘Wife, follow me!’ should rather say to her, in a soft, timid, supplicating voice, ‘Come, my betrothed!’”
Madame de Fersen looked at me with astonishment.
“Yes, madame, above all, that man will respect with pious adoration, with religious veneration, the chastely sublime terror of the maiden, torn from her mother’s arms, from her virgin couch, to be thrown suddenly in a strange household. That deep and instinctive fear, that sorrowful regret which his wife feels, he will calm by degrees, with charming attention, with simple kindness, which will tame that poor shrinking heart. He will know how to make himself beloved as the best of brothers, in the hope of being some day the happiest of lovers.”
“What a pity that that dream is only a charming folly!” said Madame de Fersen, with a sigh.
“Is it not a pity? Confess that nothing would be more adorable than the mysterious phases of such a love, exalted as hope, passionate as desire, and yet legitimate and authorised. The day on which the young wife, after a prolonged courtship, inspired by passion, should confirm by a tender avowal those rights so ardently desired, which her husband would accept solely from her, — that day would be treasured in her heart as an entrancing and enduring memory. When she had thus freely bestowed herself she would find later that the gallantry and temptations of the world pale before the memory of that dazzling, ardent happiness ever present to her mind. Such a memory would assuredly protect a woman from all sinful allurements, which could never offer to her the ineffable rapture which she had found in a sacred and legitimate union.”
Whilst I was talking, Madame de Fersen regarded me with increasing astonishment. At last she said:
“Do you really hold on marriage views of such excessive delicacy?”
“Assuredly, madame, or at least I borrow them for my prediction from the man who some day shall be so fortunate as to be entrusted with your daughter’s happiness. Do you not think that a husband such as I predict for her, handsome, young, well born, intellectual, attractive, who should hold these opinions, do you not think that he would offer the greatest possibilities for durable happiness? I am sure that Mlle. Irene is endowed with all those precious gifts of the soul which can inspire and appreciate such a love.”
“Of course, it is but a beautiful dream; but I must repeat that I am greatly astonished that you should have such dreams,” she said to me, with a slightly mocking air.
“And why, madame?”
“What! you, monsieur, who came to the Orient to seek the idealisation of material life!”
“It is true,” I murmured, gazing at her fixedly; “but I renounced that life from the moment when chance brought to my knowledge, and gave me the opportunity of adoring, an idealisation of its opposites, of intellect, grace, and love.”
Madame de Fersen looked at me severely.
I do not know what she was about to say, when her husband entered and asked me if I knew an air called “Anacreon and Polycrates.”
Since the day on which the avowal passed my lips, Madame de Fersen seemed carefully to avoid remaining alone with me, although before our travelling companions her manner was unchanged.
Thanks to the singular affection, however, with which I had inspired Irene, the princess found it difficult to carry out her project.
Whether I appeared on deck or in the saloon, the child took me by the hand, and led me to Madame de Fersen, saying:
“Come, I like to see you with my mother.”
At first I could hardly refrain from smiling at Madame de Fersen’s vexation at being thus forced into a tête-à-tête which she desired to avoid.
But I feared that this vexation of which I was the involuntary cause might make her take a dislike to me, and I tried to repulse Irene’s advances. When she insisted, I refused brusquely two or three times.
The poor child said not a word, two great tears trickled down her cheeks, and she went silently and sat down at a distance from me and her mother.
The latter tried to approach her, to console her, but Irene gently repulsed her caresses.
That evening she ate nothing, and her nurse, who passed the night at her bedside, said that she had hardly slept, and had had several fits of silent weeping.
M. de Fersen, who was not aware of the cause of his daughter’s trifling ailment, made light of it and attributed it to the child’s excessive nervous susceptibility.
But Madame de Fersen gave me a look of irritation.
I understood her.
My avowal, by placing her on her guard, had made her avoid opportunities of being alone with me.
Irene felt considerably aggrieved at this apparent coldness; the princess naturally looked upon me as the primary cause of her daughter’s grief, and she loved her with mad devotion.
ARTHUR
Madame de Fersen had therefore good cause to dislike me. I resolved to end Irene’s unhappiness.
I took advantage of a moment when I was alone with Madame de Fersen to say to her:
“Madame, forgive an insensate avowal. I regret it the more that it has not been alien to the sorrow and suffering of poor little Irene. I pledge you my word that I will never again say a single word which might trouble your maternal joys and thus expose me to forfeit your good graces which I so highly value.”
Madame de Fersen gave me her hand, with charming gratitude, and said:
“I believe you, and thank you with all my heart, for you will thus no longer separate me from my daughter!”
CHAPTER XV.
THE ADIEUX.
I SOON REGRETTED haying promised Madame de Fersen never to address her a word of gallantry. Since she felt entirely at her ease with me, she appeared to me more and more charming, and each day I became more deeply in love.
Constant to our meetings in the saloon, where we were almost always alone with Irene, our intercourse soon became quite friendly and intimate.
I very skilfully displayed my total ignorance of politics so that they should be entirely banished in our conversations. Having mastered the situation, I succeeded in always bringing back our talks to the thousand subjects relating to tender or passionate sentiments.
Sometimes, as though fearing the tendency of our intercourse, Madame de Fersen insisted on speaking politics. Then I would profess my ignorance, and the princess would wittily accuse me of acting like those lovers who pretend to dislike sport, in order that they may stay at home with the ladies while their husbands go tramping across the fields.
When the tediousness of navigation had given rise to a certain degree of intimacy between me and the officers of the Russian frigate, our conversation often introduced the name of Madame de Fersen, and I was surprised at the profound respect with which they always spoke of her. Calumny, they said, had never attacked her, be it in Russia, Constantinople, or at the different courts where she had resided.
A reputation of unimpeachable purity has, I believe, an irresistible charm, especially when
found in a young, beautiful, and intellectual woman, of an exalted position; for she must be endowed with a powerful moral strength, to disarm envy, or to blunt its darts, and inspire, as did Madame de Fersen, a general sentiment of benevolence and respect.
In comparing my love for Madame de Pënâfiel to what I felt for Madame de Fersen, I appreciated the lofty and alluring charm of this seduction.
Marguerite had, doubtless, been shamefully maligned, — of this I had received indisputable proofs; but, however false may be the rumours that attack the woman you love, they will ever produce a feeling of resentment.
Admitting, even, that you succeed in convincing yourself of the falsehood of the rumour, you then accuse the woman who is its victim of not possessing the wit to assert her virtue.
Hélène’s life had been pure, and yet she had been attacked. My attentions to her had alone occasioned those odious rumours, and yet, in my unjust frenzy, I accused her of not having known how to hold herself above suspicion.
Apart from the grace, the beauty, and intellect of Madame de Fersen, what contributed most to the feeling of adoration in me was, I repeat it, her reputation for exalted and calm virtue.
Most men, when they persist in combating the resistance of a woman seriously attached to her duties, are only led on by the love of contention, by the anticipation of a proud victory!
These were not the sentiments that made me persist in my love for Madame de Fersen. It was an unlimited reliance on the purity of her heart, in the nobility of her character; it was the certainty of loving her with all the chaste delights of the soul, without fear of being deceived by feigned severity or false prudery.
Moreover, I had given myself up to such coarse materialism during my stay at Khios, that I had an inexpressible desire to abandon myself to the exquisite refinement of a pure and lofty sentiment.
Our crossing, delayed by equinoctial winds, and followed by a long quarantine at the Toulon lazaretto, lasted six weeks.